One hurt in City cracker blasts

LAHORE-One person received minor injuries when two cracker blasts of low-intensity took place in City on Monday night which spread a wave of terror among the people, already alarmed and living in fear owing to three suicide blasts at a mourning procession in Karbala Gamay Shah on Wednesday last. The first blast took place near the house of a DSP and the other at a small office of Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) in Township Police limits, police and eyewitnesses said. Lahore Police and the BDS investigators believed that the crackers explosions were staged to disturb the devotees who were offering special prayers during the night of blessing, Shab-e-Qader. But, he said, all the devotees were calm and busy in offering prayers. The BDS personnel said that these were time bombs of low intensity placed a little apart from each other. They said few cracks had been witnessed on the windowpanes of a car and a few at the adjacent walls of the same house. There was no major loss of life or property, they added. According to them, first blast took place at about 10.32 pm while the second occurred 10 minutes later. Nobody claimed responsibility of carrying out these cracker blasts. An eyewitness Akram Shah, a civil servant who was passing in front of the house of DSP Afzal Hussain, said that the first blast took place outside the house where a car had been parked. He ,however, claimed that one citizen namely Nabeel was injured, but his condition was stable as he himself walked away from the site. 'The bomb exploded with a small bang a few yards away from me but there were huge flames, which covered some of the houses in the same area, he added. The second cracker blast took place in front of the BDS sub-office but fortunately none of the BDS officials was present on the site when it took place. Sadar Division Senior Superintended of Police (SP) Zeeshan Asghar told The Nation that there was no such information regarding these minor attacks. He said police have cordoned off the area and a massive search operation was launched in the localities concerned. No case was registered against anyone at Township police station till filing of this report. Earlier, one person was injured in cracker blast near Hazrat Khaki Shah Darbar in Green Town area on August 19th. The perpetrators also adopted the same modus operandi in that blast. Further investigations were underway.